American Airlines will launch a daily flight Dec. 17 between Los Angeles and Sydney, giving American its first Australian service in nearly 24 years.

American Airlines chairman and CEO Doug Parker announced the new service at a press conference in Miami where the International Air Transport Association has been holding its annual general meeting.

American plans to use a 309-seat Boeing 777-300ER jet on the route.

Oneworld partner Qantas Airways, which now operates two daily flights on the Los Angeles-Sydney route, will reduce the frequency of its flights.

Qantas currently operates two daily flights from Sydney to Los Angeles: one on an Airbus A380 and one on a Boeing 747-400. As of the end of January 2016, the Boeing 747 flight will go to three times a week.

Qantas also has a daily A380 flight and three Boeing 747-400 flights a week from Melbourne to Los Angeles. The 747-400 flights will be reduced to twice weekly.

Qantas will use the freed-up aircraft capacity to resume flights between San Francisco and Sydney, a route it left in May 2011 when it began flights to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. It eventually will build that route to six flights a week.

American has never flown nonstop between the mainland United States and Australia. However, it began a one-stop route between Dallas/Fort Worth and Sydney in February 1990, with a stop in Honolulu. It left that route in March 1992.

American, which has been working to build up its Los Angeles hub, will be playing catch-up with major U.S. competitors Delta Air Lines and United Airlines. Both those carriers already operate flights to Australia out of Los Angeles.

United flies nonstop from Los Angeles to Sydney and Melbourne, and Delta flies nonstop from Los Angeles to Sydney. United also offers nonstop flights from San Francisco to Sydney.

We're listening to the press conference. Here are quotes from the release:

"Qantas has been a fantastic partner through Oneworld and our joint business relationship, and strengthening those ties has provided us with a solid foundation to introduce American-operated flights into the Australian region," Parker said.

"Our customers have asked us to expand to important business destinations across the Pacific, and flying our flagship aircraft, the Boeing 777-300ER, to Sydney will provide another world-class travel experience from our key gateway at LAX," he said.

"For over 20 years, we've worked in partnership with American to give our customers the best network on both sides of the Pacific," Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce said.

"We are excited to take the alliance to a new level and expand our services to new destinations including San Francisco–Australia's biggest unserved direct corporate destination. We are seeing strong growth in numbers of visitors to Australia and look forward to carrying more travelers from the U.S. across our extensive domestic and international network in the South Pacific," Joyce said.